Sign of not enough power?

M

MYST_2

Gawd
Joined
May 4, 2000
Messages
533
I recently upgraded my CPU,MB, and video card. I'm running a NF4 SLI board, 3500+, and a 6800GS. My power supply is a no name 500 Watt that came with my case.

My problem is extremely bad video performance. I've wiped the drive twice and had the same problem. I updated the BIOS and tried several different chipset/video drivers. Nothing has an effect on the problem. Nothing crashes, I just average 5-10FPS in games such as WoW or CS:S. Prime95 ran for 24 hours with no problem.

I installed process explorer to see if maybe something was eating up cpu time. No processes were using the CPU enough to cause the problem. I did notice that DPC's (Deferred Process Calls) were eating up nearly 90% of the cpu every time I launched a game.

I'm all out of ideas here. Could the no name power supply be causing this problem?
 
quite possibly. My crappy psu is certainly affecting my performance. Check to see how accurate the voltages are.
 
Make sure your chipset drivers are installed/updated, make sure your bios settings are correct. Many pcie boards have the primary video option set on pci by default. By a Power supply tester. I got one from compusa for $9.99 and it has a 24 pin atx tester for pcie as well as the other usual ports.
 
Double check to make sure the card is in the proper PCIe 16x slot.
Also, pitch your no name PSU before it does any real damage :p.
 
Somthing like this is happening to me too my psu is 550w but i get preformance like a 6600 not a 6800gs / + i tryed many dif drivers :confused:
 
does youre vidieo card have a power input? i noticed that if you dont plug that in your card will run much slower.

if you do then you may ust want to spring for a new ps.
 
My video card has two molex connections. The power supply is a 500 Watt that came with my Aspire case. I ran motherboard monitor and Speedfan. Both are reporting the +5V as being low. Usually in the 3.xx range with spikes over 5V.

I've never heard of a video card slowing down with bad power, only crashing. I've been out of the hardware loop for a while so I figured you guys might know.
 
I recently upgraded my CPU,MB, and video card. I'm running a NF4 SLI board, 3500+, and a 6800GS. My power supply is a no name 500 Watt that came with my case.
Click to expand...

need more info then.

Are you overclocking? Is your card an AGP? Any of the hardware in your sig being used in this computer or is that a separate one all together? How much ram do you have installed? Bottom line, post all your specs.
 
MB - Giga-Byte GA-K8n Pro SLI
CPU - 3500+ Athlon 64
Video - PNY 6800 GS OC PCIE

Nothing is overclocked. The rest of the parts match my sig other than the water cooling and another 512 stick of memory. Temps are fine and the system is completely stable. The only problem is bad 3D performance.
 
shot in the dark....besides the PSU possible problem. Could there be something off with your hdd configuration? All you have to do to test the PSU is a quick swap. You may also want to disconnect some hardware from your current PSU to see if that helps.
 
Voltage is not near as important as amps.
Min req for what you are using is aprox. 20+ amps. on the 12v rail.
 
majorwoody said:
Voltage is not near as important as amps.
Min req for what you are using is aprox. 20+ amps. on the 12v rail.
Click to expand...

true, unless your 12v is running near 11v lol....
 
One last question. Will the video card slow itself down without enough power? Has anybody ever seen this happen?
 
In my experiance, low power, causes artifacting and crashing, not a preformance slow down. Someone else on the boards was having an issue, since you said you have an SLi board, make sure the card is in the correct slot.
 
devman said:
In my experiance, low power, causes artifacting and crashing, not a preformance slow down. Someone else on the boards was having an issue, since you said you have an SLi board, make sure the card is in the correct slot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the only way the card would actually slow down would be if the card maker put it in as a feature of the card, which I believe no card maker has. They would have to set the card to clock down when low voltage / amps are detected. In the right environment, it gets the power it needs, which would make this unnecessary.
 
I believe If I can remember correctly, that giga-byte mobo had issues with the geforce 7 series fitting due to components bumping into the card. Just as a shot in the dark, remove the card and reseat it in the slot paying close attention to components and making sure nothing is preventing it from seating 100% in the pcie slot. Try looking into flashing the latest bios on the mobo, and also test your psu with a psu tester.
 
The problem is fixed. The card itself was defective. Apparently it had been returned to Fry's, shrink wrapped, and sold again to me. bastards.
 
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